Todays Rex Rabin (www.sacbee.com)
Posted on 08/19/2004 9:49:33 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
SACRAMENTO -- Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger denies it but some lawmakers and analysts said Wednesday it's payback time for the Democratic Bay Area that snubbed him in the recall election -- and critics say his moves are also further pitting the north state against the south.
At the 11th-hour of the legislative session, Schwarzenegger has suddenly set the stage for $4 or $5 bridge tolls by leaving the region to work out cost overruns on Bay Bridge work and is working to clear the way for a controversial Indian mega-casino that would make the East Bay the urban gambling capital of California.
"Clearly it is not high on the governor's agenda to make the citizens of the Bay Area happy people," said Barbara O'Connor, director of the Institute for the Study of Politics and Media in Sacramento.
"And that goes back to looking at demographics of how they voted in the gubernatorial recall election," she said.
Her assertions about the moves that would ease state deficit woes were echoed by Bay Area lawmakers but denied by Schwarze negger in a recent interview with the Oakland Tribune, where he said he wouldn't "write anyone off."
Schwarzenegger's moves on the Bay Bridge and Indian casino this week come as the Bay Area is in danger of losing leadership clout in the Legislature, where Democrats are in the majority but the GOP governor is increasingly able to dominate developments.
Senate Majority Leader Don Perata, D-Oakland, is favored to succeed Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, D-San Francisco, next week as the Legislature winds up it's 2004 session.
Calling Schwarzenegger's idea of the Bay Area paying for multibillion-dollar cost overruns on Bay Bridge work "a nonstarter," Perata and others have begun working on a stopgap plan to thwart the specter of $4 or even $5 bridge tolls, until the problem can be straightened out in next year's legislative session.
But Burton, who's termed out and has called Perata his "bridge guy," said he could support a $4 bridge toll -- a stance analysts said may signal Democrats' true strategy.
Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, tried to float a compromise Tuesday. In a letter to Business, Transportation and Housing Secretary Sunne Wright McPeak, he suggested raising state tolls to $4, but continue the $3 toll for commuters with FasTrak transponders.
The idea would protect the transit projects paid for by the voter-enacted third dollar, including seismic repairs to BART's Transbay Tube. But it would fall far short of generating the $3.2 billion McPeak says is needed to complete the Bay Bridge construction. Leno suggested the state pick up the difference.
Perata also criticized Schwarzenegger's plan to bolster state funds by allowing the Santa-Rosa based Lytton Band of Pomo Indians to construct a 5,000-slot-machine casino -- one of the world's largest and California's first such urban facility -- in San Pablo, north of Oakland.
Other tribes seeking Bay Area casinos agree with him. The Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians wants to build a casino in Contra Costa County that would be barred under the agreement with the Lytton band.
Perata, however, in the churning political mix of issues such as the casino and Bay Bridge, could lose the pro tem post to a Southern California candidate.
That would leave the Bay Area without a top leadership post in the Legislature for the first time in three decades. It would come at a time when issues such as the Bay Bridge cost overruns threaten to further pit the north against the south on transportation and other issues, much as they have been at odds over water supplies for decades.
"I hope that everybody calms down and doesn't treat it (the Bay Bridge) as a north-south issue, but a California issue," said Assemblyman John Dutra, a Fremont Democrat who once held the transportation committee chairmanship now held by a south-state lawmaker.
Despite allegations that Schwarzenegger is punishing the Bay Area for largely favoring Democratic Gov. Gray Davis in last year's gubernatorial recall election, the new Republican governor has long sought to quash such fears.
"We won't write anybody off," Schwarzenegger said in a recent interview. "Quite the opposite."
"Remember that I campaigned on being the governor of the people, so to me, every town, every village, every county, everyone counts.
"We don't have to agree with someone politically, that's the last thing that I'm concerned about. What is important is that we help every county, that we help California."
(All the Bay Area Rs, independents and conservatives thank ya too , Gub!)
If true..
Payback is such fun..
Can you say .. Recall!
Politicians shocked by casino deal
John M. Hubbell, Cecilia M. Vega - San Francisco Chronicle
Alarm spread quickly Wednesday over a pending agreement between the state and an Indian tribe that would create a huge casino in the heart of the Bay Area, with even the congressman whose legislation helped it along questioning the deal.
I thought the reason for the cost overruns besides corruption and kickbacks was that Oakland protested the design as presented so they made cosmetic changes to not offend Oaktown's sensibilities.
To Bay area bridge and mega-casino............apply tag line and two aspirins
They raised the tolls this year to pay for 'alternative' transportation programs. This story ignores the efforts to have a special vote to kill those projects and put the funding toward the bridges which are the source of the funding.
Yes. Most of the overun was for cosmetic enhancements.
Both of them?
Recall who?
Todays Rex Rabin (www.sacbee.com)
Don Perata as the next Senate Pres Pro-tem? He's wackier than Burton.
I heard Burton railing yesterday about the fact that Arnold is hanging No Cal out to dry. He said that next time there is a major fire in So Cal, we'll be standing on the street with a tin cup. That's some rational thinking.
I'm sure the bay area liberals can pay a higher toll, since they pay the homeless for doing nothing, obviously they have more money than brains...
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/09/22/MN72645.DTL&type=printable
"Clearly it is not high on the governor's agenda to make the citizens of the Bay Area happy people," said Barbara O'Connor.
Hey, I'm a citizen of the Bay Area, and this decision makes me very happy!
Arnold ROCKS!!!
As for $4 tolls, make me laugh. In NYC, the toll on all bridges and tunnels is $6 without an EZ-Pass. Cry me a river.
they should charge $5 both ways
Do you really think the state of California will recall its governor because the gay bay will be paying a $5 toll to cross a bridge?
The Verrazano Narrows bridge is $8 without and $7 with E-Z Pass.
But you're right in that this poster makes it his mission to post anything that can be considered even remotely critical of Arnold and seldom posts anything but.
McClintock lost but some just can't seem to get over that.
imo,, There is a disease that still frequents FR,,
It is what afflicts many like you who Could post their own positive articles (if they can find any or many) and apply all the positive spin you can.. the fact that there is little positive to post is not my fault..
But as this administration wobbles off the path , you yelp and whine when anytime someone calls attention to All the parties responsible for the mess and the issues we remain mired in.
But No, let's go slam folks who post things that aren't positive to our side or theirs and feel like we have made a contribution.
Parsky and Karl 'Rogue Elephant' Rove must be so proud of yours and others efforts to besmirch your "fellow' FReepers and continue to deride anything closeto a conservative approach being applied to our problems instead of sputum and vitriol..
Thanks for the bump.
BTW,, the state owns all the bridges in the Bay Area, if I recall correctly.
That the bridge was boogered to death by Bay Area cosmetic considerations by old timers in state and local city governments is not a get out of jail free card.
The state must answer for this mess and clean it up, and not just toss this back to the locals to handle.
Yes, we have seen that you have ... peculiar beliefs about this site and the ideas that should be expressed on it. Nobody is contesting your right to post ... selective articles about the topic of your ... concerns. Best wishes.
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